The Education of an Ottoman Envoy during the Early Modern Period (Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries)

The capitals of the Ottoman state during the age of expansion, Bursa and Edirne, had no permanent European envoys. The first permanent envoys were sent to Istanbul from Genoa and Venice only after the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, when the Ottomans turned their state into an Empire. But the Ottomans carried out their relations with European states in the form of ad hoc diplomacy until the reign of Selim III (r.1789–1807), when they sent permanent envoys to Europe. Who were the envoys during the era of Ottoman ad hoc diplomacy? How were they selected? More importantly, what did they read and how were they educated? These are the basic questions this paper grapples with in its analysis of the educational process of becoming an envoy in the early modern Ottoman world. It seems that envoys in general, whether Büyük Elçi (‘ambassador’) or Orta Elçi (‘minister plenipotentiary’), received practical training through apprenticeship by Reisülküttâp (‘Head of Chancery of the Imperial Council’) or Amedi office (‘Assistants of the Reisülküttâp in the 18th Century). They acquired a strong intellectual education, reading and discussing extensively, and an idealistic sensibility, examining, for instance, Münşeatü’s-selâtîn, Humâyunnâme, the Turkish translation of Kelile ve Dimne (Calileh va Dimnah), Ibn Kahldun’s Mukaddime, Ethics of Nasiruddin Tusî and Ahlak-i Alai of Kınalızâde Ali as well as a subsequent list of complementary knowledge including jurisprudence, ethics, mathematics and other matters of statecraft, which make a person almost a walking library (‘ayaklı kütüphane’).

Said Mehmed’s (d. 1761) embassy to France in 1741–1742 marks a major step in relations between the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe.

For the first time the ambassador saw himself and was seen by others not simply as an outsider but as a person of equal social and cultural rank to European aristocracy. This enabled him to mix in elegant Paris society and to engage in discussions of all types in a way which had not been possible to his father Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi (d. 1732), the previous Ottoman ambassador to France in 1722. Said Mehmed was able to achieve this as he had been to Europe before: first with his father in 1721–1722 to Paris, during his father’s embassy, then some ten years later to Poland (res. 1730) and Sweden (res. 1732). Also he seems to have had good social and business relations with Humbaracı Achmed Pacha, the former Claude Alexandre Comte de Bonneval (1675–1747), and to have perhaps acted on his behalf while in France.

Nevertheless Said Mehmed remained a product of the Ottoman administration and his real mission in France was to investigate how France and other Western European countries had become more successful than the Ottoman Empire. With the Ottomans’ military decline after the Siege of Vienna (1683), elements in Ottoman society began trying to reverse the essentially inward-looking attitude that had prevailed until then. Their efforts were not universally approved.

It is most unfortunate that no embassy report (‘sefâretnâme’) has survived for Said Mehmed’s stay in Paris. (His father gave a marvelous account in 1722, which is of great help to historians.) One recent French author, Hélène Desmet-Grégoire, suggested in her book Le Divan Magique (Paris, 1994) that without his sefâretnâme, it would never be possible to know exactly what Said Mehmed saw and did. But in fact the numerous press reports, letters and other kinds of contemporary accounts (for example, the letters of the Swedish ambassador Count Carl Gustav Tessin (1695-1770), published in Tableaux de Paris, 1739–1742 (ed. Gunnar von Proschwitz, Paris 1983), enable us to reconstruct in considerable detail his journey, his stay in Paris, and the exchange of lavish presents between Louis XV (r.1715–1774) and the ambassador.

This paper concentrates on the social and cultural exchanges of the embassy, including meetings with the royal family, other ambassadors (including Naples, Venice and Russia), great nobles such as the Maréchal de Noailles (1678–1766) and the comte de Saint Florentin (1705–1777) and intellectuals such as Voltaire (1694–1778). It also covers Said Mehmed’s visits to artistic and cultural events, and sets the scene with accounts of the ambassador’s residence and his relations with his sometimes turbulent staff. The gifts have already been published (John Whitehead, “Royal Riches and Parisian Trinkets. The Embassy of Saïd Mehmet Pacha to France in 1741–42 and its Exchange of Gifts”, The Court Historian, Volume 14, No. 2, 2009: London, The Society for Court Studies) so will not be discussed here, apart from the set of avant-garde scientific instruments for surgery, clock-making, mathematics and gunsmithing, which Said commissioned at Louis XV’s expense and which were no doubt of much interest on his return.

12:45–14:00 Lunch Break

14:00–15:15 Session II “The Siege of Belgrade (1789) and the Legend of a Field Marshal”

Celebrating Field Marshal Gideon Ernest von Laudon (1717–1790) in Theatre: The Siege of Belgrade on Stage

Josephinian diplomacy, the embodiment of realpolitik, was based on a principle “to take everything and to give nothing in return” (Egon Friedell, 1878–1938), meaning to extend the Habsburg territories at the Balkans, among other aims. In accordance to that, the Monarchy led numerous wars and, during the Austrian-Ottoman War (1787–1791), Emperor Joseph II’s (r.1765–1790) army conquered Belgrade in October 1789. It was led by the 72-year-old Field Marshal Gideon Ernest, baron von Laudon (1717–1790), one of the most successful Habsburg commanders during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) and the Austrian-Ottoman War of 1787–1791. He joined the Austrian army in 1741, having had military experience in Russia, and after defeating Frederick II the Great of Prussia (r.1740–1786) became Austrian commander in chief for Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. When he retired in 1763 he was engaged in the Austrian-Ottoman War, and after capturing Belgrade from the Ottomans in 1789 he was made commander in chief of the Austrian armed forces. This victory in the Siege of Belgrade was highly significant due to the city’s key geopolitical position at the Balkans, and it was seen as the biggest Austrian military campaign. Baron von Laudon’s military triumph was widely celebrated in Vienna, in other Habsburg cities, and also among Slavic people. This last victory made him a legend, especially through numerous works of art. The two papers will consider the cult of Field Marshal Laudon, with Tatjana Marković discussing novels, poetry, and music compositions, including the comic opera The Siege of Belgrade (London, 1791) by the librettist James Cobb (1756–1818) and the composer Stephen Storace (1762–1796), and Michael Hüttler examining eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theatre.

L’impresario delle Smirne is a metatheatrical comedy written in 1759 by the Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) for Venice’s San Luca Theatre (former Teatro Vendramin di San Salvador, established 1622). Satirical depictions of the contemporary theatre world were not a novelty: in 1720, still in Venice, Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739) had published, at first anonymously, the famous pamphlet Il Teatro alla moda (‘The Fashionable Theatre’). Goldoni himself had dealt with this topic in comedies (for example in Il Teatro comico, 1750; Il poeta fanatico, 1750; La cameriera brillante, 1754) and librettos (La scuola moderna o sia La maestra di buon gusto, 1748; L’Arcadia in Brenta, 1749; La cantarina, 1756). One of the direct sources of this Goldoni play is L’impresario delle Canarie (‘The Impresario from the Canary Islands’), an intermezzo libretto written in 1724 by Pietro Metastasio (Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, 1698–1782) only four years after the text of Benedetto Marcello. Goldoni relocated the already remote origin of the protagonist, turning him into Ali, a wealthy Turkish merchant who plans to introduce Italian opera to the territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Apart from the polemical subject, it is particularly striking that, in this comedy, the author chose a Turkish character: Ali’s absolute lack of experience with everything involved in setting up a company of singers highlights the utter absurdity of the world of Italian opera, and gives a cue to the playwright to “make this Comedy useful and pleasant”, as written in the Preface to the Reader (Carlo Goldoni, “L’impresario delle Smirne. L’Autore a chi legge”, in Delle commedie di Carlo Goldoni avvocato veneto, vol. 12, in Venezia, per Giambattista Pasquali, 1761–1778).

Ali is a farcical Turkish character, like many others on the model of Commedia dell’Arte scenarios (such as in Il finto schiavo, scenario by Basilio Locatelli, seventeenth century; or in Elisa Alii Bassà, “opera turchesca”, scenario in Biblioteca Corsiniana, Roma, Manoscritti, 45 G5, Raccolta di Scenarii più scelti d’Istroni, vol. 1, seventeenth century). One of Goldoni’s early librettos, Lugrezia romana in Costantinopoli (1737), also outlined such a character with Albumazar, the ridiculously cruel and lustful Turkish emperor. But the naivety that characterizes Ali entails something new, compared to the conventional typifications. Turkish characters could be savage and cruel, amorous and lustful, brave and magnanimous, but never ingenuous; which clearly points out the gradual attenuation of the “fear of Turks” recognizable in many plays of the previous period.

Furthermore, Ali is simpleton because he interacts with a world where the rules are definitely illogical. Ultimately, as Montesquieu (1689–1755) had done in conceiving his Lettres persanes (Amsterdam, 1721), the author took advantage of the Eastern traveller to give European spectators the disenchanted image of their own society.

6. Aliye Fatma Mataracı (Istanbul / Sarajevo – International University of Sarajevo) and Julie Bates (Dublin / Sarajevo – International University of Sarajevo)

The Staging of Fascination: Theatrical Costume as a Manifestation of Eighteenth-Century French Interest in the Ottomans

This paper explores the eighteenth-century French fascination with the Ottomans as manifested in items of costume featured in Charles-Simon Favart’s (1710–1792) comedy Soliman second ou Les Trois Sultanes (Paris, 1761). This comic opera, set in the period of Süleyman the Magnificent (r.1520–1566), presents a Frenchwoman (Roxelane) who enters the seraglio as a captive, but after a series of comic exchanges with the Sultan, leaves it as his wife. In a bid for authenticity, costumes were brought from Istanbul for the premiere of Les Trois Sultanes at the Comédie Italienne. This paper will follow the migration of such items of material culture between the spaces of the court, theatre and palace, charting the interactions between French and Ottoman diplomacy and peace-making, culture and fashion.

Aaron Hill (1685–1750) and His Observations on Ottoman Music and Learning

Aaron Hill (1685–1750) was a playwright and the stage director at the well-known London theatres, The Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the Queen’s Theatre. He was also a poet and author but his most important work was his travel book The Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1709), containing his travels to İstanbul, Egypt and Palestine.

After having completed his education in Westminster at the age of fifteen, he “sailed a voyage” in 1700, embarking from London on March 2 and travelling via Portugal and Italy to Istanbul. There he visited his relative William Lord Paget (1637–1713), “Ambassador Extraordinary from the court of Great Britain” (1693–1702), “many years residing at Constantinople … the only man who ever cou’d preserve the Favour of the Turks”, as Aaron Hill described Lord Paget in the preface of the book. While in Istanbul he stayed at the residence of Lord Paget in Pera. During his stay he also travelled to Egypt and Palestine in 1702, and was escorted by an elderly chaplain from the British Embassy, this escort and voyage being arranged by Lord Paget. Early in the summer of 1702 he left Istanbul with Lord Paget and his entourage and returned to England in April 1703. Aaron Hill was a playwright in London and one of his works was a sketch for George Frederick Handel’s (1685–1759) first opera for London (performed at Queen’s Theatre on 24 February 1711) – Rinaldo, based on Torquato Tasso’s (1544–1595) La Gerusalemme liberata (1581). As a traveller, Aaron Hill wrote his observations in detail with his characteristic and interesting interpretations of Ottoman social and cultural life, customs and traditions.

This paper focuses on Ottoman music and learning based on culture and traditions in Ottoman society and its education system, by way of Hill’s observations in the ninth chapter of his book, “Of the Turkish Studies”, which discusses Ottoman musical instruments and the quality and characteristics of Ottoman music, as well as the contrasts from one extreme to the other in the education system, with the main social, cultural and traditional factors that shaped it. Hill’s opinions on music and learning are compared to those of other European observers who stayed in the Ottoman cities prior to him, such as Antoine Galland (Istanbul, res.1672–1673), M. de Hayes (Bosnia and Istanbul, res.1658), Sir George Wheeler and Jacob Spon (Istanbul, res.1675–1676) and John Covel (Istanbul and Izmir, res.1670–1677). In other chapters of the book which give accounts on the institutions and traditions, Hill refers to The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London, 1665) by Sir Paul Rycaut (1628–1700), an English diplomat (Consul in Izmir 1667–1678) who visited the Ottoman cities Belgrade and Istanbul in 1665. Hill also wrote about certain legendary stories, including the foundation of the janissary corps, from Ottoman history based on such sources as Le Comte Marsigli’s L’État Militaire de l’Empire Ottoman (Amsterdam, 1732) and Eyyûbî Efendi’s Kanunnâme in his poetical style.

A Failed Diplomatic Career and its Consequences for European Knowledge of Oriental History, Culture, and Literature: Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall’s (1774–1856) Sojourn at Constantinople

Joseph von Hammer (since 1835 von Hammer-Purgstall) was born in Graz and entered the “Orientalische Akademie” at Vienna in 1788. Founded by Empress Maria Theresia (r. 1740–1780) in 1754, the academy educated young people to be future dragomans, i.e., interpreters in the realm of Habsburg’s trade and diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. As one of the so-called “Sprachknaben”, Hammer-Purgstall learned Turkish, Persian, Arabic, French, Italian, and Latin. In 1799 he was sent to the Sublime Porte, first as assistant interpreter, then as legation councilor (1802–1806). Yet his difficult and rather bad-tempered personality became an obstacle to his diplomatic activities and his broader interests in Oriental culture and history, Arabic and, above all, Persian language and literature. After his final return to Vienna in 1807, a post as court translator (Hofdolmetscher) in the State Chancellery gave him time to intensify his studies, so much that he is considered one of the founders of Ottoman and, in the wider sense, of Oriental Studies. Hammer-Purgstall also translated Turkish, Arabic and Persian literature into French and German, and all these activities became even more intense when he retired. Among his most important works, there is the Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches (ten volumes, Pest: Hartleben, 1827–1835), still consulted today. From his translation of the ghazal poems by Hafiz of Shiraz (ca.1325/26–1389/90), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) drew inspiration for his West-östlicher Divan (‘West-Eastern Diwan’, 1819). His annual Fundgruben des Orients (six volumes, Vienna: Anton Schmid, 1809–1818) collected contributions by European and Oriental authors in German, Latin, English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Modern Greek. The articles, written by outstanding scholars such as Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Franz von Dombay (1758–1810), Graf Carl Borromäus von Harrach (1761–1829), Thomas Chabert (1766–1841) and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758–1838), deal with Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, and Persian literature, Oriental history, architecture, and music; they contain travel diaries, translations, and free adaptions. Thus, the Fundgruben prove to be a platform for the vivid Occidental interest in the treasures of the Orient, the Abendland’s (‘Occident’) need of being enlightened by the Morgenland (‘Orient’).

The attendees to this third Roundtable are cordially invited to make brief presentations (approximately 5 to 10 minutes) reflecting to the discussion topic “Envoys, Embassies: Art Historical and Cultural Historical Substance and Sources” in the light of their own fields of expertise and their institutions, so as to bring a channel of exchange and to provide possible new angles to research on the topic. The issues to address are the typology and iconology of diplomatic missions in Ottoman-European context, considering aspects such as processions, ceremonies, gift giving, image(s) of the envoys and ambassadors, social and cultural gatherings, and not least, royal and official audiences; as well as sources to these aspects in art and cultural history.

Speakers

Maria Alberti (Florence)

Holds a PhD in History of Theatre at the University of Florence, titled Turkish Occurrences in Florentine Performances in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. After having taught for many years at Siena University, she currently teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. Her field of research focuses on the links between politics and entertainment in Italian courts of the Ancien Régime. She also worked at the reorganization and cataloguing of important theatrical institutions’ archives. Her most recent publications are: “The Discovery of Theatre in the Arab World. Theatre festivals of the Medici described by a special spectator: the Druze Emir Fakhr ad-Din”, in The Medici and the Levant, proceedings ed. by M. Caroscio and M. Arfaioli, Roma, Viella, (in print); Fakhr ad-Din II al-Ma’n, Viaggio in Italia (1613–1618). La Toscana dei Medici e il Mezzogiorno spagnolo nella descrizione di un viaggiatore orientale, a cura di M. Alberti, Milano-Udine, Jouvence, 2013; “Spettacoli acquatici a Firenze e a Mantova tra Cinque e Seicento”, in Tra boschi e marine. Varietà della pastorale nel Rinascimento e nell’Età barocca, a cura di D. Perocco, Bologna, Archetipolibri, 2013; “Le parti scannate per Il Solimano di Prospero Bonarelli”, in Studi di Storia dello spettacolo. Omaggio a Siro Ferrone, a cura di S. Mazzoni, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2011.

Julie Bates (Dublin / Sarajevo)

Dr. Julie Bates was awarded her PhD by Trinity College Dublin in 2013. Her doctoral thesis charted Samuel Beckett’s material imagination and evolving creative praxis through thirteen recurring objects in his fiction, drama and poetry from the early 1930s to the late 1980s. She is currently revising her thesis for publication as a monograph with Cambridge University Press under the title Miscellaneous Rubbish: Beckett’s Art of Salvage. Among other publications on Beckett, twentieth-century fiction, visual art and theatre, she has contributed a chapter to the Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre (2015), and has given talks in Ireland, Britain, Colombia, Croatia, Mexico and Portugal. She has lectured on modern literature and art at universities in Dublin and Mexico, and currently lectures on drama and creative writing at the International University of Sarajevo.

Johanna Borek (Vienna)

Professor of Romance Literature and Translation Studies at the University of Vienna and translator of literature (Denis Diderot, André Gide and Luigi Pirandello, among others). She has taught at the Universities of Bari, Pavia, Trieste, Paris 8, Leipzig and Dresden. She has published on the European Enlightenment (Denis Diderot, Reinbek [Rowohlt] 2000, among others), on literature, theatre and politics in Italy of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and on translation history and theory.

Michael Hüttler (Vienna)

Dr.phil. Born in Tulln, Lower Austria. For several years he had worked in a bank prior to studying theatre, film, and media studies as well as journalism and communication studies at Vienna University. He has taught at Yeditepe University Istanbul (2001–2003) and Vienna University, Department for Theatre, Film and Media Studies (2003–2010). Since 2001 he has conducted research for the Da Ponte Institute and the Don Juan Archiv Wien. From 2007 to 2010 he was director of Don Juan Archiv Wien, and since 2011 he has been Head of Hollitzer publishing. Member of the Groupe international de recherches interdisciplinaires “Spectacle vivant et sciences de l’homme”. Current research focuses on theatre in the eighteenth century and the Turkish subject in European theatre. He has published on Mozart, theatre-ethnology, business-theatre, and experimental theatre in Austria, including: Aufbruch zu neuen Welten: Theatralität an der Jahrtausendwende, ed. with Susanne Schwinghammer and Monika Wagner, Frankfurt/Main: IKO, 2000; Theater. Begegnung. Integration?, ed. with Susanne Schwinghammer and Monika Wagner, Frankfurt/Main: IKO, 2003; Unternehmenstheater: Vom Theater der Unterdrückten zum Theater der Unternehmer? Stuttgart, 2005; (ed.) Hermann Nitsch: Wiener Vorlesungen. Vienna, 2005; (ed.) Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vienna, 2007; Il corpo del teatro, ed. with Ulf Birbaumer and Guido di Palma. Vienna, 2009; Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 1: The Age of Mozart and Selim III (1756–1808), ed. with Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna, 2013; (ed.) Bastien und Bastienne. Vienna, 2013; Ottoman Empire and European Theatre, vol. 2: The Time of Joseph Haydn. From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839), ed. with Hans Ernst Weidinger. Vienna, 2014. Since 2012 main editor of TheMA – Open Access Journal for Theatre, Music, Arts.

Seyfi Kenan (Istanbul)

Received his PhD from Columbia University in 2003 and is currently an associate professor at Marmara University and senior fellow at Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations of Koç University (RCAC) in Istanbul. He formerly worked at the Center for Islamic Studies in Istanbul and taught at Renmin University of China (Bejing). He specializes in comparative intellectual history, the history of education in the Ottoman Empire and Turkish modernization. He edited The Ottomans and Europe: Travel, Encounter and Interaction (İstanbul: İSAM Yayınları, 2010) and extensively published in the field including articles in the Encyclopedia of Islam. He is also the vice editor of the Journal of Ottoman Studies.

Tatjana Marković (Belgrade / Vienna)

Associate professor at the University of Arts in Belgrade and an adjunct at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna; she has also taught at the universities of Graz and Ljubljana. She worked on her postdoctoral project Opera and the idea of self-representation in Southeast Europe at the University Graz and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2010–2014). She is a chief of the IMS Study group Music and Cultural Studies, the editor of the critical edition of Joseph Friebert’s Singspiels, co-editor of the open access research journal for theatre, music and arts TheMA (Vienna) and a member of the editorial board of Glasbeno-pedagoški zbornik (Ljubljana). She has published on eighteenth- and twentieth-century music (Balkan, Russian, German opera; Yugoslav culture, music historiography). Books: Transfigurations of Serbian Romanticism: Music in the Context of Cultural Studies (in Serbian, Belgrade, 2005), Historical and Analytical-Theoretical Coordinates of Style in Music (in Serbian, Belgrade, 2009), Galina Ivanovna Ustovl’skaja – Komponieren als Obsession with Andreas Holzer (Köln: Böhlau, 2013). She is the editor of several books and author of numerous papers published internationally.

Aliye Fatma Mataracı (Istanbul / Sarajevo)

Obtained a BA in Philosophy from Boğaziçi University, followed by an MA in Sociology, earned from the same university with her thesis Family Stories: Constructing a Family Narrative. She won the honorary mention in the “scientific paper” category of the Prize Competition for Research on History of Banking and Finance 2002 with her work Trade Letters as Instances of Economy, Ideology and Subjectivity, published by Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre (Istanbul) in 2005. She acquired an extended experience of teaching in a wide range of disciplines in Social Sciences through her affiliation with İstanbul Bilgi University between 1998 and 2009. She also established the Archives of the Silahtarağa Power Plant, the first urban-scale power plant of the Ottoman Empire founded in 1914 and turned into the santralistanbul Museum of Energy in September 2007. She continued with her doctoral research as a Visiting Student Research Collaborator under the supervision of Professor Dr. Molly Greene in the Department of History at Princeton University between 2009 and 2011. She defended her PhD dissertation, “Trading in the Shadow of Wars: Commercial Collection of a Late-Ottoman Muslim Trading House”, under the supervision of Professor Dr. Edhem Eldem at the Department of History, Boğaziçi University. Since October 2011, she has been affiliated with the Social and Political Sciences Program (SPS) ín the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) at International University of Sarajevo (IUS) as Assistant Professor and Coordinator for SPS Program since January 2012.

Gülgûn Üçel-Aybet (Istanbul)

Received her BA Honours (1966) and her PhD (1980) in History from Istanbul University. She studied post-graduate courses on History and History of Art at the universities of London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. She taught history at the American Robert College in İstanbul, Ege University in İzmir and Mimar Sinan University in İstanbul. Her works are mainly focused on the Ottoman social, cultural and economic history, Ottoman military and judicial history, history of medicine and history of civilization. She was invited by international institutions as IREMAM, CIEPO, ICANAS IRCICA, ISHM and CEROMDI to present papers on her work between the years of 1983–2014 at the universities of Oxford, California (Berkeley), London, İstanbul, Toronto, Hong Kong, Budapest (Eötvös Lorand University), Aix-en-Provence, Bursa, Cambridge, Prague (Charles University), Heidelberg and London School of Economics. Her recent books: Avrupalı Seyyahların Gözünden Osmanlı Dünyası ve İnsanları (1530–1699) (‘The Ottoman World and Its People through the Eyes of European Travellers’), Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2003; Avrupalı Seyyahların Gözüyle Osmanlı Ordusu (1530–1699) (‘The Ottoman Army through the Eyes of European Travellers’), Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2010; Economic Policy of the Ottoman State and the Maintenance of the Local Economies, ICKEM, 2014.

John Whitehead (London)

Educated privately in England and France, he holds a BA Hons. in History from Bedford College, London University, 1979 and has been an art dealer since 1980, specializing in French eighteenth-century furniture, works of art and ceramics. Member of Council, The Furniture History Society, 1987–1990; Member of Council, The French Porcelain Society, 1992–1995, and 2005 to present; Founder member, Association des Spécialistes de la Céramique de Collection, member of Council 1997–2006; and British Representative of the French Syndicat National des Antiquaires, 2001–2008. Has been a specialist in French eighteenth-century works of art, with an emphasis on Sèvres porcelain, for over thirty years. As a dealer, he is responsible for a number of major discoveries in the field of Vincennes-Sèvres, many of which are now in museums all over the world. As a scholar, he is best known for his book The French Interior in the Eighteenth Century (London: Laurence King, 1992), which aims to take an overview of the whole subject of place furnishings and objects in their decorative contexts. As well as lecturing, he has also produced articles on, among others, the marchands-merciers of eighteenth-century Paris, the porcelain collections of the Grand Dauphin, the Regent and William Beckford, Japanese lacquer and French furniture, and diverse Sèvres-related subjects. His two recent books on Sèvres porcelain of the eighteenth century were commissioned and published by the Sèvres museum and factory. In 2010 he was made an officier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of services to the Arts. In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. He gave numerous lectures worldwide and is the author of many publications. Since 1991 he has been exhibitor at antiques fairs in London, Paris, and Enghien (Belgium). He has sold works of art to many of the world’s prestigious museums, including: Musée du Louvre, Paris; Musée Carnavalet, Paris; Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres; Musée Adrien-Dubouché, Limoges; Château de Versailles; Château de Fontainebleau; Musée National du château de Pau; Decorative Arts Museum, Madrid; British Museum, London; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Wallace Collection, London (for the library, as the museum does not add to its collection); Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Frick Collection, New York; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, San Francisco; Detroit Institute of Arts; Art Institute, Chicago; St. Louis Art Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Seattle Art Museum; Toledo Museum of Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Hillwood Museum, Washington DC.

CHAIRPERSONS

Received her BA degree from Barnard College, Columbia University; MA Washington University; PhD Hacettepe University in Art History. She has worked at Hacettepe University and chaired the Department of History of Art for many years. Currently she teaches at Koç University in Istanbul. She has served as advisor to the Turkish Ministry of Culture and organized several international exhibitions. She was a Fulbright visiting scholar in the USA and guest professor at École Pratique des Hautes Études à la Sorbonne in Paris, and she has been a member of the governing board at IRCICA. She has lectured on Turkish art in the United States and several countries in Europe and Asia and has participated in many international research projects. Renda is the author or co-author of books and many papers published in the USA, Europe, and Turkey. She specializes in Ottoman art, Ottoman painting, and interactions of European and Ottoman culture. Some of the books she edited, co-edited, and wrote are: The Transformation of Culture: The Atatürk Legacy, ed. G. Renda and M. Kortepeter, Princeton, 1986; A History of Turkish Painting, ed. Grabar, Renda, Turani, and Özsezgin, Geneva-Istanbul, 1988; Woman in Anatolia: 900 Years of the Anatolian Woman, ed. G. Renda, Istanbul, 1994; The Sultan’s Portrait: Picturing the House of Osman, ed. Necipoğlu, Raby, Majer, Meyer-zur-Capellen, Bağcı, Mahir, and Renda, Istanbul, 2000; The Ottoman Civilization, ed. H. İnalcık and G. Renda, Istanbul, 2002; Minnet av Konstantinople: Den osmansk-turkiska 1700-talssamlingen pa Biby, ed. Ahlund, Adahl, Brown, Karlsson, Kaberg, Laine, and Renda, Stockholm, 2003; Image of the Turks in Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. Neumann, Stepanek, Yerasimos, Renda, Gardina, Grothaus, and Vidmar, Istanbul, 2005; Osmanlı Resim Sanatı (‘Ottoman painting’), ed. Serpil Bağcı, Filiz Çağman, Günsel Renda, and Zeren Tanındı, Istanbul, 2006.

Suna Suner (Vienna)

Theatre scholar and stage performer. Born in Ankara, she received her BA in Conference Translation & Interpretation from Hacettepe University. She taught at Istanbul Bilgi University between 1996–2002 and in 2004 received her MA degree in Performing Arts from Middlesex University in London. Since 2007 she has been a member of Don Juan Archiv Wien’s team, conducting research in theatre and diplomatic history in Ottoman-European context. Since 2008 she has co-directed and organized Don Juan Archiv Wien’s international symposia series “Ottoman Empire & European Theatre”. In 2013 she received her doctoral degree from the Institute of Theatre, Film & Media Studies at the University of Vienna. Other projects conducted at Don Juan Archiv Wien include Theatre and Diplomacy, Ottoman Embassy Reports Edition, İlber Ortaylı Lectures, and Ottoman Round Tables.